Author: afraiSummary: "There are two schools of thought
on the stories about my mother," writes Kuchiki Rukia's son in
his 154th year.Disclaimer: KT's, not mine. I made Rukia's son
up, but he probably belongs more to his mother than to anyone else.
Notes: Written for the Twenty Souls: Random Bleach Character
Facts challenge on LiveJournal.

20 Things We Learnt About Kuchiki Rukia (But Only
Once She Could Not Disagree)

1. "There are two schools of thought on the stories about my
mother," writes Kuchiki Rukia's son in his 154th year -- it has
taken him this long to put aside grief, resentment, even love, and to
begin on the all-important task of remembering. "The first: that
none of the stories are true. The second: that all of them are true.

"In this biography, I will be
taking the second approach."

2. At thirteen years old, Rukia killed a cat with a stolen knife
and cooked it over a fire made by her friends. These friends (of whom
only Captain Abarai Renji survives) were shocked, only pacified by
the clinical way in which she did the job, her care in wiping the
knife before the blood dried, her lack of emotion as she buried the
bones.

Later she cried, but it was her way to
do these things alone, in the kind dark, where they could not shame
her.

3. In one possible future, Kurosaki Ichigo destroys a waffle while
his children engage in their favourite game. This is the one they
never tire of, which has retained its charm despite endless repeats.
They call it Finding Aunt Rukia. This morning, led by their mother
across fields of brown bread, evading pats of butter, wading through
apricot jelly bogs, they discover her image in the peanut butter, on
the back of a cereal box, and in the fortuitous conjunction of the
shadows of leaves on a wall and a flapping T-shirt outside the
window.

Does Ichigo weep into his maple syrup,
is there a particular viciousness to his wielding of the bread knife
this morning? No. Loss has grown familiar, and this is a form of
eulogy too.

4. It has been observed by many that those who had a significant
relationship with Kuchiki Rukia, both friends and enemies, have all
subsequently risen to glory in their own ways. On this matter,
Kurosaki Ichigo has said in a recorded interview that "if Rukia
ever stood behind me, it was only because that was the best position
for her to shove me in the back."

It seems unlikely that the word was
"stab" instead of "shove", as some have argued.
Kurosaki Ichigo is a romantic.

5. "Perhaps Lady Shiba knew my name," said Rukia,
speaking as always with the humility of one who knows emotion should
be beneath her. This was a habit she was never able to throw off,
even in later years. "Of course I was not important to her."

She paused.

"I watched her," said Rukia.
"I wondered what it was like, to be so loved."

6. Kuchiki Rukia spent three quarters
of her life believing herself to be unloved. Certain scholars argue
that it is seven-eighths, but there are obvious flaws in their
methodology, and their research is dubious at best.7. "If my mother had a redeeming
quality," writes her son, "it was that she was very often
completely wrong about everything."8. "Not like I ever knew her that well," said Arisawa
Tatsuki, in her interview. "She was kinda psycho, but if you've
noticed, psycho kinda suits Ichigo."

"Not just him."

"No."

9. Extract from an exclusive interview with Captain Abarai
Renji, done for the biography

Q: Is there any meaning to life now, I
mean, what's the point of it all, you know? I ask myself that, what's
the point of it all if she's not here to -- I don't know, she
probably would've disapproved. Do you think she ever really loved me?
A: Kid --Q: Do you think she ever really loved you?A:
(silence)

10. Those close to Rukia in life noted that she was capable of an
impressive stillness at moments of deep emotion, a stillness
intensely poetic, yet never theatrical.

"I did not draw pictures of my
mother, as children usually do," says her son. "She seemed
to me already to be the most perfect work of art."

11. "This was in my stage of violent infatuation, from the
age of 4 to 9," he adds in the beginning of the next chapter.
"After that, the bloom started to wear off the relationship.

"It has been said so frequently
that it has become a cliché: Rukia made everything difficult
for herself. People forget how difficult she made it for others."

12. "They remember only that she
flew. They forget the people she left behind."13. It would be wrong to say that Rukia had no sense of humour.
Say, rather, that it operated on a plane of reality separate from
others'.

Whether out of revenge or in a simple
quirk of personality, she took an especial pleasure in the
extravagant discomfiture of men and teenage boys.

14. Contrary to what was popularly
believed, especially by anybody who had anything to do with her,
Rukia had in fact heard of scruples. She believed they were a kind of
biscuit.15. In her second year in the field, Kuchiki Rukia killed a
colleague.

"It was not his death that stayed with me," said Rukia.
"Not that, but. I knew I could do it. I could kill anyone. Stab,
skewer him on the point of my sword, garrotte, strangle, poison, just
keep hitting until he stopped moving. I was not -- I am not the best
fighter in Soul Society, but I know how to kill.

"I could do it. I could kill, even today. I could kill, and
kill, and kill, and live.

"Wouldn't that make you hate
yourself?" she asked. "Wouldn't you be afraid?"

16. Extract from an exclusive interview with Captain Abarai
Renji, done for the biography

A: Think she forgot me for a while.
Can't blame her. She had a lot on her mind.Q: Did you forget
her?A: (silence)Q: (repeats the question)A:
(pause) Could you?

17. In a poll carried out by the
reinstated Captain of the 12th division, 54.75 of respondents
believed that Kuchiki Rukia was a hero, 44 thought she was a
villain, and 1.25 would have done her either way.18. "Did she ever forgive me?" said this same Captain in
his interview. "I have the scars to this day."

"Well-deserved."

"Well-executed." Captain
Urahara had an appreciation for craftsmanship.

19. "It is not true that she found
the tranquil stupidity of rabbits comforting," writes her son.
"She just thought they were cute."20. It is rumoured that the present tense is the correct one to
use when speaking of Kuchiki Rukia. Nobody has been able to confirm
whether this is true.

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